


Her heart is a Vault

by bluewolfmoon



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: 2x12, ALL THE ANGST, Angst, Character Study, F/M, Karen POV, PTSD, Pain, but isn't this ship all about the pain?, car-crash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-29 02:50:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18217193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluewolfmoon/pseuds/bluewolfmoon
Summary: A deeper look inside Karen's mind as Frank saves her from the Blacksmith. At her heart and soul, and how much she can take before she breaks, before the vault that she has become fails to protect her.During/post 2x12 in Daredevil





	Her heart is a Vault

**Author's Note:**

> My first fic for this ship, this scene has been haunting me since I saw it and I had to explore it more.

Karen is a vault, unbreakable, impenetrable. Even when she wants to break, she can’t.

No one knows her secrets, her aches, her injuries, and yet they pile high within, threatening to push out the door of the vault that contains her hurt, her heart.

Karen doesn’t tell anyone about Wesley, how he haunts her weakest nights and stalks her dreams until they become nightmares, how Fisk strangles her in her sleep until she almost wishes she had just died in that god forsaken jail cell the first time someone tried to kill her. She can’t, as much as she wishes she could break the painful illusion her friends hold of her as this soft, nice, sweet innocent thing they need to protect, because she knows she isn’t ready to see that illusion die. She isn’t sure they’ll still treasure her and love her the same, she knows it could break them.

Just as she knows she can’t even tell Frank, who is already so hurt and broken himself, about her scars, her past, everything she holds within the vault of her heart. But she thinks he wouldn’t judge her, that it wouldn’t change the way he thinks about her.

She almost breaks when he saves her from Schoonover by crashing into her car. How could he have known what demons he was unleashing in her mind with the terribly familiar sound of crunching metal, shattering glass, and the burn of her seat-belt across her body? She had been driving then, too, and almost started screaming for a brother that had been dead for nearly a decade now. But it is Frank who breaks her free of that delusion, snaps her back into the painful reality of the present by wrenching open the passenger door and dragging the unconscious murderer out, without sparing a glance for her, shaking and bleeding.

She follows, pulled both by the magnetism between them as well as the driving need to distance herself from the scene of the crash, her oldest nightmare. She pleads with Frank, knowing even as she speaks he won’t yield, not even for her. So she lies, calls him a dead man, as if that will keep him away, as if she isn’t haunted by dead men at every turn.

When Karen finally makes her way back to the crumpled heap of a car, she leans against it for a moment, cataloging the all too familiar burn of pain from her dislocated shoulder, seat-belt burn, and bruises too many to count. She slumps down, unwittingly throwing her battered body into another wave of wracking pain, so familiar in its fiery rage. A litany of swears and curses threaten to break free of her lips, not from the pain of her injuries, but from the force of habit, the belief that it seems more normal to curse and cry out when experiencing this much pain, all the while knowing it won’t help. Her vision swims, clouded with tears and temporarily overrun with flashes of memories she can’t seem to keep locked away. For a moment she wonders idly if this is what will break her, what will at last reduce her to nothing. At the very least, she doubts she will be able to drive a car again, not with two horrors awaiting her return to the wheel.

As her tears overflow, running down her face and onto her chest, setting fire to scrapes and scratches she didn’t even know she had, she hears him return. His heavy, unmistakable footsteps. The soft sound of fabric as it brushes past both itself and the brushes that border the road. Then the scrape of his boots on the road, growing louder as he approaches her crumpled form. He crouches down, his dark eyes that have always been able to see too much, look too deep into her eyes and perhaps even see the dark stains she wears on her soul, carefully inspect her body, no doubt cataloging her injuries. He doesn’t offer any words of comfort, no soft lies of how everything is going to be okay, he just reaches for her, takes her into his arms and carries her to his truck, the warmth of his body doing more good than any solace he could offer. He sets her in the passenger seat, but doesn’t step back just yet, remains crowded close to her as he at last speaks.

“I’m gonna put that arm back in place, okay?” Frank’s gravelly voice flows over her, and it takes her a moment to turn that deep rumbling sound that comforts her even when she knows it shouldn’t into words. She looks up, and is immediately caught in those deep dark eyes, lost in them for an immeasurable moment of time before she nods slowly. He raises his hands from the seat where they hand been resting on either side of her to brace her shoulder and hold her arm in the correct position. His eyes stay locked on hers, and waits until she nods again, tells him she’s ready. He nods once, then pulls, and she lets out small huff of breath she’d been holding in, but the sharp pain in her shoulder has become a dull ache so she just breathes as deeply as she can with bruised ribs and whispers, “Thank you, Frank.” He doesn’t reply, just quietly turn her towards the dash and walks around to his side the truck and climbs in. She tries to control her flinch when he starts the car, but he notices and the perpetual frown on his face deepens. As he backs up the truck away from the wreckage of Ben’s car, Karen knows she won’t ever be driving again, even if she could somehow afford another car.

Just another fracture to be locked up behind the vault. Another weakness to be contained deep within, where it can’t hurt her anymore. Another moment for her nightmares to torment her with, on those darkest of nights.

Karen feels one last tear streak down her cheek at the thought, but by the time Frank is dropping her off next to her apartment, she has become the vault again, unbreakable, impenetrable, and she steps out of the truck with her head held high and her eyes clear, nodding once more to Frank as he pulls away.

She didn’t notice how his eyes never strayed far from her on the drive home, those eyes that have always seen her in her truest form, that had seen her when no one else had. She couldn’t have known he had watched as she pulled herself back together again, pushed the memories and nightmares deep within, watched her become the Karen Page everyone else saw and expected.

She couldn’t have known that watching her refuse to shatter almost broke his heart, made him want to just hold her until she felt safe enough to tell him about every single thing that haunted those blue eyes of hers.

And no one saw the lone tear that escaped from those dark eyes as Frank drove away, both resigned to facing their nightmares alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think!


End file.
